This is one of the saddest truths about our society police should be held to a higher standard with stricter punishments than those applied to regular civilians. But instead they are rarely criminally charged for criminal actives and even more rarely convicted and sentenced on par with regular civilian criminals

Who will watch the watchers? That's easy -- private drones under the 25lb weight limit.

You may be joking, but that's the answer. The problem of "who will watch the watchers" has long been solved: Everyone. Those concerned about the watchers behavior should be allowed to watch the behaviors of the watchers with their own independent watching group. This is the basic fundamental principal of accountability, and it can only be corrupted if secrecy is allowed. Personally, instead of drones, I would use a simple image recognition system hooked up to a couple of telescopes and a mesh of at leas

I don't think Texas can legally ban drones anyway, it's the exclusive jurisdiction of the FAA. Just like states can't pass laws restricting the use of radio frequencies because again, it's the exclusive jurisdiction of the FCC.

...they can regulate how police organizations are permitted to use existing technology and equipment. Ridiculous example - a police department in Texas may be able to get their hands on an M-1 tank, doesn't mean they can use it. Of course, they'll actually get to use it once, but after that...

Activists SHOULD set the evil bit to zero (0) while hunting violators of pollution regulations and other worthy causes. The cops MUST set the evil bit to one (1) while abusing power. At other times the cops MAY set the evil bit to zero (0), especially when gathering evidence on rich people, gun owners, for-profit corporations and non-compliant ranchers.

A COA can be approval for anything. There is no inherent limitation on weight. The FAAs website is chalk full of PR half truths. Source: I've received a COA for a >25 lb aircraft.

More importantly, there is no legal binding policy regulating drones at all, at least not as far as I can find.

The FAA has clearly stated that they don't want people flying drones for commercial use without a license. However, they never created a regulation to that effect, so it is really nothing more than a suggestion, and not legally enforceable.

Isn't this the same department that crashed a drone into their own armored vehicle full of SWAT personnel during a photo op? This seems a lot less like mechanical difficulties and more like inexperienced/inept officers who are blaming everything on their new, expensive, unnecessary toys.